The Parish Meeting

Just a thought by someone who really cares about the village.

Too few people attended the Annual Parish Meeting in Sutton Bridge on Tuesday 14th March! If they had attended, they would have heard about Sutton Bridge Parish Council's appalling plans to spend approximately £1,000,000 [one million pounds] on a new sports pavilion! They have already committed £70,000 of Council funds on employing 'advisors' by presenting those advisors with a 'wish-list', according to a representative from one of them.

In the meeting we were told that sites for the new pavilion were surveyed on the far side of the Memorial Ground [nowhere near parking, gas water, electricity and drainage]; behind the Curlew Community Centre [again would require gas water, electricity and drainage] and where it is now, where all services are already connected! What a criminal waste of money!

The Pavilion is nothing more than a 'vanity project' by the Chairman of the Pavilion Committee Cllr Brewis! It is suggested that there should be a new Parish Council Office [what's wrong with the one in the Curlew Community Centre?]; a meeting room [there are already 3 or 4 in the Centre] and a café [to compete with local businesses] and changing room, showers and so on for sports clubs. If, and it is a very big if, the Council could raise grants and donations for £500,000, where would they get the rest? If they take a loan, it could cost the Parish something like £40,000 a year for the length of the loan - 10, 15, 20 years?

I urge readers in Sutton Bridge to make sure that they use all eleven of their votes in the Local Parish Council elections on 4th May, and cast those 11 votes for any new potential Councillors on the ballot paper, so that there will be enough new Councillors elected, to review the whole project, and consider installing an 'off-the-peg, pavilion, quickly and at a manageable cost of between £150,000 and £300,000, either on the site of the old pavilion or next to it, where all the 'services' are in place.